Noah Oppenheim

Noah Oppenheim (born 1977 or 1978)[1] is an American television producer, author, and screenwriter. He became president of NBC News in 2017 and is known for attempting to stop Ronan Farrow's reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases.[2] Previously, Oppenheim was the executive in charge and senior producer of NBC's Today Show, where he supervised the 7–8am hour of the broadcast, and head of development at the production company Reveille.[3][4]

Noah Oppenheim
Born1977/1978 (age 42–43)[1]
NationalityAmerican
EducationA.B., Harvard University
OccupationJournalist, television producer, author, screenwriter
Known forPresident of NBC News

Early life

Oppenheim was born to a Jewish family.[1] He attended The Gregory School in Tucson, Arizona, and served as an editor and writer for the school newspaper, the Gregorian Chant.[5] After high school, Oppenheim graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2000. While attending Harvard, Oppenheim was Editorial Chair of the Harvard Crimson from 1996 to 2000.

Career

Writing

In 2016, Oppenheim won the Best Screenplay Award at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival for writing Jackie.[6]

Oppenheim wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of James Dashner's young adult, science-fiction, dystopian, fantasy novel, The Maze Runner.[7] He also wrote the screenplay for The Divergent Series: Allegiant, a film in the Divergent film franchise.[8] Oppenheim is co-author with David Kidder of the Rodale Press series The Intellectual Devotional. One of the volumes was 8th on The New York Times list of hard-cover political bestsellers in November 2007.[9]

CNBC/MSNBC

Oppenheim co-created CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer,[10] was executive producer of Scarborough Country, and senior producer of Hardball with Chris Matthews.[11] In 2003, as executive producer at MSNBC, Oppenheim was sent to Baghdad to assess whether the negative media coverage of the Iraq War was justified, and published what was later described as "a devastating critique on the behavior and practices of reporters from the mainstream outlets" there.[12] In January 2015 Oppenheim was appointed a senior vice president and given control of the Today Show; he had worked as a senior producer for the show from 2005 until 2008.[3]

NBC News

Oppenheim was made president of NBC News in February 2017.[13]

During his tenure as president of NBC News, articles and opinion pieces Oppenheim wrote while attending Harvard resurface, which raised concerns about the culture Oppenheim is cultivating at NBC and whether it is accommodating to female employees.[14][15] He has been accused of self-dealing by repeatedly promoting children's books co-authored by his wife on the Today Show.[16]

On October 14th, 2020, NBC News announced that it will host a town hall with Donald Trump the next evening, at the exact same time as a previously scheduled town hall with Presidential candidate Joe Biden, and after President Trump single-handedly pulled out of the second of three scheduled Presidential debates.

Harvey Weinstein

In 2017, it was Oppenheim's idea to put Ronan Farrow on the story about the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, which were credited with starting the Me Too movement; NBC News ultimately, however, failed to publish it, a decision Farrow blamed on Oppenheim.[17][18] Farrow took the story to The New Yorker which published it soon afterwards.[19][20]

The NBC News organization and Oppenheim were criticized for not publishing the Weinstein story, criticism that intensified when news broke of the sexual harassment claims against Matt Lauer.[13][21] Ronan Farrow later said that Oppenheim played a major role in refusing to allow NBC News to report on those allegations in 2017. Oppenheim denied Farrow's claim and said that the reason NBC News chose not to report on the story was that the available evidence did not meet their journalistic standards.[17] However, other accounts of contemporary discussions within NBC News are consistent with Oppenheim preventing NBC journalists from reporting on Weinstein.[17] Oppenheim denied that NBC hid the Matt Lauer accusations over the years and calls Farrow's book a "smear" though many on his staff remain skeptical.[22] Farrow also reported that NBC News hired a "Wikipedia whitewasher" who removed references to NBC's role in the Weinstein case from several Wikipedia articles, including Oppenheim's.[23]

Personal life

Oppenheim is married to Allison Oppenheim.[24][25]

References
  1. Bloom, Nate (December 5, 2016). "Jews in the News: Kirk Douglas, Natalie Portman and Max Cassella". Jewish Community Centers and Federation of Tampa.
  2. Battaglio, Stephen (February 15, 2017). "'Today' show executive Noah Oppenheim is named president of NBC News". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
  3. Steel, Emily (January 16, 2015). "NBC Names a 'Today' Veteran to Lead the Show". The New York Times. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  4. Adalian, Josef (January 16, 2015). "NBC Finds New Today Show Boss". New York Magazine. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  5. "Gregory alumni".
  6. Tartaglione, Nancy (September 10, 2016). "Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion To 'The Woman Who Left'; Tom Ford's 'Nocturnal Animals', Emma Stone Take Major Prizes – Full List". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  7. Fleming, Mike Jr. (September 16, 2016). "Rising Star 'Jackie' Screenwriter Noah Oppenheim Also Runs NBC's 'Today'? How Did That Happen?". Deadline. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  8. "'Divergent' Threequel 'Allegiant' Taps 'Maze Runner' Writer (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  9. Buddo, Orville (November 26, 2007). "Poli-Book Best Sellers for November". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
  10. "Oppenheim at Today".
  11. Moraes, Lisa de (January 16, 2015). "Noah Oppenheim Named 'Today' Show Chief". Deadline. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  12. Britt, Thomas W.; Adler, Amy B.; Castro, Carl Andrew (2006). Military Life: Military culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 187–. ISBN 978-0-275-98304-8. Retrieved March 2, 2012.
  13. Marcin, Tim (November 29, 2017). "In the wake of the Matt Lauer firing, meet NBC News president Noah Oppenheim". Newsweek.
  14. Cartwright, Lachlan; Kirell, Andrew; Tani, Maxwell (October 11, 2019). "NBC News Chief Noah Oppenheim's Harvard Writings on Women and Sexual Assault Horrify Staffers". The Daily Beast.
  15. Oppenheim, Noah (December 17, 1999). "Considering 'Women's Issues' at Harvard". The Harvard Crimson.
  16. Grove, Lloyd (October 23, 2019). "'Disgusting': NBC Staffers Furious About News Chief Noah Oppenheim's Self-Dealing". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
  17. McHugh, Rich (October 11, 2019). ""You Are to Stand Down": Ronan Farrow's Producer on How NBC Killed Its Weinstein Story". Vanity Fair. Retrieved October 19, 2019. In Oppenheim’s mind, he was somehow the victim here. He had launched an amazing and important investigation, only to be saddled with two journalists who just didn’t live up to his exceptional standards. Never mind that the New Yorker found a way to publish the same investigation he had killed. Never mind that he was continuing to sit on the results of that investigation while every other news outlet in the country pursued it. He, Noah Oppenheim, was the hero of the tale.
  18. Farrow, Ronan (2019). Catch and kill: lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-48663-7. OCLC 1121593969. NBC says that, you know, you didn't- that the story wasn't publishable, that it wasn't ready to go by the time you brought it to them," she said, referring to Oppenheim's and Kornblau's suggestions that I'd pitched the story, come up empty, then gone off to report it elsewhere of my own volition. Maddow pressed an inded finger on her Lucite desk. Her real eyebrows arched up, and, in the desk, her reflected ones plunged down: a Cirque du Soleil of skepticism. "But obviously it was ready to go by the time you got it into The New Yorker." I'd been clear with Oppenheim that I'd avoid, but wouldn't lie. "I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosively reportable piece that should have been public earlier, and immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that," I said. "It is not accurate to say that it was not reportable. In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC.
  19. Koblin, John (October 11, 2017). "How Did NBC Miss Out on a Harvey Weinstein Exposé?". The New York Times.
  20. Guthrie, Marisa (October 11, 2017). "Why Ronan Farrow's Harvey Weinstein Bombshell Did Not Run on NBC". The Hollywood Reporter.
  21. Koblin, John (December 1, 2017). "After Firing Matt Lauer, NBC Executives Move to Control the Damage". The New York Times.
  22. Tani, Maxwell (October 14, 2019). "NBC News Chief Unleashes on Ronan Farrow in New Staff Memo". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 16, 2019.
  23. Farhi, Paul (October 10, 2019). "Ronan Farrow overcame spies and intimidation to break some of the biggest stories of the #MeToo era". The Washington Post.
  24. Leitereg, Neal J. (April 3, 2015). "'Today' chief Noah Oppenheim lists Westside place for lease". Los Angeles Times.
  25. Corbett, Sue (June 2, 2017). "BookExpo 2017: Rethinking Royal Garb: Savannah Guthrie & Allison Oppenheim". Publishers Weekly.
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